Live coverage of the Expedition 47 mission on the International Space Station. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Coverage from our colleagues at Spaceflight Now. Follow them on Twitter.
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Sparkling Stephan’s Quintet
The Stephan’s Quintet of galaxies in the constellation Pegasus was discovered by astronomer Édouard Stephan in 1877. This image combines observations performed at three different wavelengths, with ESA’s Herschel and XMM-Newton space observatories as well as with ground-based telescopes, to reveal the different components of the five galaxies.
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Rare transit of Mercury to take place on 9 May
On Monday, 9 May there will be a rare transit of Mercury, when the innermost planet in our solar system will pass directly between the Earth and the Sun. The last time this happened was in 2006. With a properly filtered telescope and fine weather, the entire 7½-hour event can be seen from the British Isles.
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Rosetta’s Comet 67P contains ingredients for life
The possibility that water and organic molecules were brought to the early Earth through cometary impacts has long been the subject of important debate. Now, ingredients crucial for the origin of life on Earth, including the simple amino acid glycine and phosphorus — key components of DNA and cell membranes — have been discovered at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.